A screen printing has been known as a method for supplying paste used for part joining, circuit forming or the like on a substrate. According to the method, the paste is printed on an electrode plane of a substrate via pattern holes provided on a screen mask. For carrying out the method, a screen printing device provided with a screen printing mechanism in which a squeegee unit slides on an upper surface of the screen mask in a state of abutting the substrate on a lower surface of the screen mask has been used (see PTL 1, for example).
In an example shown in PTL 1, a closed type squeegee mechanism has been used as a squeegee unit. The closed type squeegee mechanism is configured so that a cartridge storing paste is mounted therein, and the paste is packed into pattern holes by a compression force produced by compressing the paste in the cartridge. Upon comparison with a simple squeezing operation of filling paste into pattern holes by moving a squeegee, which is performed by a conventional open-type squeegee, the closed type squeegee mechanism described above has an excellent packing property. Therefore, in this case, a mesh mask which is formed by sealing a metallic mesh material with resin may be suitably used as a screen mask for printing, for example, where the mesh mask is difficult to expect a favorable packing property in the case of the conventional squeegee.